With increased popularity of both fixed and mobile devices, some with touch screens, efficient management of function and application icons is becoming increasingly important. Even the case of standard displays and navigational apparatuses, changes in context would be a useful improvement.
Icons can be manually moved, arranged by last use, order of download, alphabetical order, size, type, and several other criteria. However, many of these fall short of offering the user maximum utility. What is desired is the ability to arrange icons on screens where each of the screens represent a context, and where the icons are further arranged by cache or frequency of use, rather than simply by last use. If icons where arranged by context and frequency of use, the icons that the user will most often need will be more readily accessible.
Context is not necessarily presence based, but as discussed herein, can include many factors including presence, environmental factors, personal preferences, location information, speed information, network information, and the like. For example, if a user is traveling on business they might want icons for their favorite travel partners, a GPS mapping function, and other such travel-centric functions displayed independent of where they are located currently. Further, context is not necessarily temporal based. For example, a user might need to adopt a personal context during work hours to handle a matter that can't wait. These exemplary factors driving context are distinguishable from prior technologies that use temporal or physical factors as the sole driver of the context. Actual context can be derived based on typed keyword, user activity, indication on a contextual toolbar, a user indicated device mode, a combination of temporal, physical and other factors.